Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

MojoKid writes "Intel has unveiled its next-generation Atom N450 processor, and a review of the new Asus Eee PC 1005PE netbook that houses it shows decent gains in performance and lower power consumption. The Atom N450 has been re-architected similar to Intel's other notebook processors in that it now has an integrated memory controller and graphics core on the CPU itself. In addition, Intel's serial DMI (Direct Media Interface) now replaces the system bus to the Southbridge IO controller. From a performance standpoint, the Atom N450 single core chip offers a nice performance gain versus previous generation Atom CPUs and it appears Intel has dual-core variants of the chip on the horizon as well."

Is the new integrated graphics core a descendant of intel's much maligned; but well supported in linux, GMA950 line, or is it another take on the HD-media-accelerating-but-dear-god-the-drivers-oh-why-does-it-hurt GMA500 stuff?

That doesn't make any sense. The 945 chipset uses the GMA950, the GMA500 is actually a totally-outsourced PowerVR chip. The 'native' Intel chips (i810 through G45) are all tatally supported by Intel's open-source drivers, the GMA500 is almost impossible to get working in Linux.

The new built-in N450, D410, and D510 graphics chips are based on the GMA3100, if I recall, they're even called 'GMA3150'. That means they're supported by open-source drivers (and possibly by Mac OS X!), but the performance is bad eno

Intel has been tearing apart their Linux graphics stack and rewritting it for the future. For a while, that meant poor performance during the rewrite, but it really is getting better. Intel is really helping push DRI2, GEM, TTM, UXA, etc.

At least Intel does their development in the open. Didn't Intel also contribute code to Moblin to optimize Moblin performance on their hardware? I'd like to see some more general kernel enhancements for these processors. Any speed increase over Windows on the most common netbook processor is a huge win.

Chrome OS is already fast. If Intel can help make it faster when comparing it side-by-side to 7, it only helps Linux adoption on the whole.

I also have a small tangental question. I always hear about huge performance gains that can come from properly writing code to take advantage of SSE2,3,4,etc instruction sets. I also hear that almost no one does write code to take advantage of these instruction sets. If Intel really wants to push their hardware, why not write such optimizations for the Linux kernel?

I also have a small tangental question. I always hear about huge performance gains that can come from properly writing code to take advantage of SSE2,3,4,etc instruction sets. I also hear that almost no one does write code to take advantage of these instruction sets. If Intel really wants to push their hardware, why not write such optimizations for the Linux kernel?

The kernel doesn't do much CPU-bound processing. It is math and media libraries where these vector instructions would be actually useful. You can already have some of their advantages using a decent compiler. Basically, that means different binaries for processors with different capabilities, so your average binary distro is not going to have any fancy instructions. I suggest trying Gentoo if you actually want to use your modern CPU.

Wouldn't it be fair to assume anyone running a 64-bit distro has a procesor capableof SSE4 insturctions? Write the code to take advantage of these instruction sets, but only enable them on your 64-bit binaries then.

I'm no low level programmer, but I assume IO and CPU scheduling are math intensive enough. If SSE instructions really boost video encoding, what about encryption algorhythms, or file systems?

The various SSE instruction sets provide SIMD instructions, which is an acronym for "single instruction, multiple data". As the name suggests, they allow you to perform operations on multiple pieces of data with a single instruction. SIMD is great for media applications, where you often have to do the same mathematical operations over and over again to lots of data at once, however pretty much all of the stuff that happens in a kernel is logic-heavy tasks that only deal with single pieces of data at a time,

And various cryptographic things (and somewhat relatedly, checksums) can take advantage of SSE stuff to various extents. And probably other little things in rare situations. Thus why I said "pretty much all" instead of simply "all".

Certainly not. No AMD CPUs prior to the Phenoms support SSE4.x; nor did any Intel chips prior to the 45nm switchover (later Core2 CPUs). MMX, i686, SSE, and SSE2 are the baseline for all AMD64-capable CPUs. Subsequent instruction sets have been added to various architectures in a willy-nilly fashion, and with varying levels of per-clock performance depending upon the chip being discussed. I can't really speak for the utility of putting SIMD code to work in non-multimedia related code, but it seems to be

No, it would not be fair to assume that at all. Most Intel Core Duo Quads in the LGA775 form factor do not have SSE4 capabilities. At that time you had to buy a XEON or other high end quad core to get SSE4. These processors are quite happy to do 64-bit OS's.

Intel has been tearing apart their Linux graphics stack and rewritting it for the future. For a while, that meant poor performance during the rewrite, but it really is getting better.

As the original poster points out, none of this applies to the GMA500, which is supported by a different driver--a proprietary binary driver, and not a very well-maintained one at that, if reports are true.

Your post completely missed the original poster's point - the Intel GMA500 is a major outlier in terms of Linux support.

The GMA950 series is well supported by Linux (with the exception of the re-architecture issues that hurt Ubuntu 9.04 so badly).

The GMA500 is simply minimally supported in Linux and all indications state that it will stay this way. The GMA500 graphics core was outsourced to another company, as was driver development.

As to SSE2/3/4 - They only benefit for certain operation types. Most kernel ops won't benefit, and also, using SSE usually means hand-coding in assembler - compilers that generate good vector SIMD code are rare. The kernel developers tend to prefer to avoid hand-coded ASM whenever possible.

However, I do recall that RAID checksumming code and memcpy() were once implemented using MMX to improve them, so these sections might benefit from SSE (and might already do so.)

If Intel really wants to push their hardware, why not write such optimizations for the Linux kernel?

Well, the point has been made already: that stuff doesn't happen in the kernel [slashdot.org]. Here's the followup; if there's optimizations to be done, often they can be done by the compiler. Intel does of course have a snazzy compiler which produces (on average) better performing executables than does gcc. On the other hand, gcc's focus tends to be x86 and now x86_64, so it's not bad either. In the other cases, they belong in an external library; libraries involving sound, graphics, and video are likely candidates for i

That was my first thought..No accelerated anything, crappy performance on anything more than rendering a basic webpage, totally lame. I also wonder if they could have picked WORSE timing with the FTC investigating [linuxtoday.com] and EU already fining them [infopackets.com].

I mean first the have to cut a 1.25 billion [wired.com] dollar check to AMD for rigging the game with OEMs through bribes and threats, they shut out Nvidia from the newer chipsets leaving them to rot on LGA775 and making themselves the only game in town for the new sockets, and now

They get paid for the stickers. What annoy me more are the 1 million and 1 slightly different models; I would have preferred a slightly inferior but well supported (by the community as well as the company) model like the 700 was in the past.

Apple, having such a strong design culture, is the only manufacturer who realizes these stickers make your computer look cheap and stupid.

Apple's design culture is often about minimalism, and so they probably wouldn't put extra symbols or stickers on their computers even if it didn't look cheap and stupid.

Apple is just about the only laptop manufacturer who can't be bullied by Microsoft into putting any kind of "Microsoft certified" sticker on it.

Apple customers are less likely to be casual about their attachment to the brand. If you're a Dell customer, you might not think twice about buying an HP. If you're an Apple customer, buying an HP instead is a little more noteworthy. Therefore, they don't have to try to compete by advertising energy star compliance or the latest Intel chip. An awful lot of Apple customers couldn't care less about which Intel chip is in their computers.

I just bought one of the new HP Envy laptop and was presently surprised at the lack of stickers. Its just an HP logo on the back, similar to apple. In fact, the entire thing pretty much was just ripped off from Apple - keyboard design, body construction, multi-touch mousepad, you name it. Even the packaging was slick and minimalist, just like an apple. (Pricier than a PC, but way more bang for your buck than a similarly priced macbook pro). And no, not a window's certified sticker in sight - oh snap, m

I just checked the HP Envy out, it is EXACTLY like a macbook. They didnt even try to hide it.
Still, I applaud the rip-off. It shows, at the very least, that they understand how ugly the rest of their lineup is.
The guy who said "NASCAR" was right on the money. No other term quite embodies the black-hole-of-suck that is PC laptop design.

My Dell XPS 1530 laptop did not come with any stickers on it at all. I think the laptop looks relatively nice, too. Maybe not as fancy as a Mac Book Pro but it won't burn your leg if you accidentally touch the machine to your skin, either.

Stickers can be always removed...what's really frustrating is that many otherwise fine laptops come in glossy finish.

That might look good on an equipment which sits on the shelf in your house...or in shop. But terrible for something which is meant to be routinely touched by hands and kept in usual bag with other stuff.

Guess it just shows that such manufacturers care more about how it looks in shop...

Once you have removed the stickers, you are often left with difficult to remove adhesive gunk on the laptop. An easy way of removing the gunk without damaging or scratching the surface is to spray a little silicone based lubricant in the area and wipe with a paper towel. It quickly wipes off and the silicone lubricant won't damage plastic like petroleum based lubricants (like WD-40) sometimes do.

I prefer orange oil based cleaners. They are often marketed as label or gum removers.Not only do they smell good, they also don't damage plastics. Oh and they're also a great insecticide and will keep ants away because all insects hate the smell - after all the oil is the oranges' natural defense.

I used to work in bicycle shops doing repair and sales. We *never* sold WD-40, and always recommended against it's use ( at least as a chain oil ). It was not very good for that. Technically, it may be a lubricant, but it is not a very good one. It was designed to displace water ( WD - Water Displacer ). It you want something like a penetrating oil, something to drive out water, to clean, WD-40 is probably very good at those. Light lubrication? Maybe. I wouldn't, myself.

Well, sure, but go up three posts in this thread and it looks more like AC is arguing that the stickers make it go faster...:) The stickers, by themselves, do not make the machine better. I think there's a fair case that they make the machine worse, at least until they are removed.

Intel and Adobe both have completely dropped the ball, but right now it's Intel that's in trouble. The only "netbook" I know that can handle fullscreen flash is the LT3013u; At 12" and $350 it hits the price point okay but misses size. Still, it's at least got a 720p display, which means it has to do more than most of the competition to even break even — it does better than that.

If you think Flash sucks on Windows then obviously you've never seen it run on Mac OS X. Adobe is a complete disgrace on that OS.

That's okay, I can experience how much it blows on Linux. Using the 32 bit flash for Linux in a 32 bit firefox or in 64 bit firefox with a little help, on my Athlon 64 X2 4000+, was about like using it on my Acer Aspire D250 (1.6GHz Atom, old type.) Using the 64 bit flash on that machine was more like using it on a 1.4 GHz Thunderbird or something. Now I have a Phenom II 720 and I can just barely watch fullscreen flash video, and flash games perform worse than a Core Duo T2600 with Windows XP. Adobe hates Linux as much as they hate Mac OS.

I don't have a good reason, personally, for my decision to run 64-bit versions of any software I use, if it's available. I made the switch to the AMD64 platform rather late (last 2008) - by which time a lot of the problems had already been solved. I've never had to run the 32-bit Flash plugin on my 64-bit processor, for instance.

I don't know if there's any practical benefit to running a 64-bit build of the Browser... Running a 32-bit build on a 64-bit kernel would get me 4GiB of virtual memory sp

It's an issue of speed. I want flash to run as fast as possible, because it is a dog. So I want 64 bit flash. Might as well have a 64 bit browser to go with it. 64 bit flash on Linux (beta only) is indeed substantially faster than 32 bit, at least on the two systems I've compared on (Athlon 64 X2 4000+, and Phenom II 720. Other details available on request.)

I installed Flash through the website with the "Ubuntu Partners Channel" on 9.10 and it was really easy. The partners channel looks like just another apt source. It'll be interesting to see if upgrades "just work".

I don't think anyone has argued in this thread that Flash is not a gigantic piece of crap. On the other hand, it's an absolute necessity for the use of many websites. If I want what they've got, I need flash. I don't use flash on my website, if that makes you feel any better.

You should look into the latest AMD Neo [yahoo.com] based Netbooks. My local Walmart has started carrying those and I was quite imprssed at how well they do multimedia, which shouldn't be surprising as they are an ULV Athlon with a Radeon GPU for video.

At an average price of $450 IMHO they are a really good deal for a Netbook with some real performance. After playing with one I would certainly go with the AMD other the Atom, which to me feels slower than my old 1.1GHz Celeron. Plus this, like most Intel IGPs, is fran

I'm definitely not buying any more single-core Atoms. I got an Acer Aspire D250 and it's something of a dog. I may be reselling it to someone to whom that won't matter, though. Then I got the LT3013u which has ATI GPU and 1.2GHz Athlon 64. No powersaving in the main linux kernel yet, but it's coming... so right now it's running flat-out. It's still within reasonable norms for temperature though, and still gets about 3h45m on the battery, which is enough for my current purposes. I'm running Karmic on it, and

Now only few other pieces of the puzzle in the quest for ultimate ultraportable.

Pixel Qi screen, for even longer battery life and legibility in sunlight.

With lower temps & power draw of Pinetrail it might be also possible for netbooks to become routinely cooled passively.

Also just for me and other faithful...uhm...clit;p (plus preferably as close in overall form to original Lenovo S10 as possible, it was actually very nice) Can't help it, playing Diablo2 in a cathedral during organ concert, on a cemetery on 1 XI night (it looks like this here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wszystkich_swietych_cmentarz.jpg [wikimedia.org] ) and in a train while sitting next to some nuns are things I simply must do. And with touchpad that's not really possible.

Clits have been deprecated because they wear out. They just can't take any abuse whatosever and you're always having to buy replacement covers for them. The glidepad, on the other hand, is only hard on your fingerprint, and those are a liability anyway.:)

I've actually done a bit of point and click gaming with a glidepad, it's not too bad. A FPS, on the other hand, is basically a gigantic fail. If not a mouse, I need a trackball [logitech.com] for that. I had the original marble, whose ergonomics better suited my bear paw

"Clits have been deprecated because they wear out. They just can't take any abuse whatosever and you're always having to buy replacement covers for them. The glidepad, on the other hand, is only hard on your fingerprint, and those are a liability anyway.:)"

Bullshit, I've used quite a few decade-old Thinkpads, and not a single one had problems with the trackpoint.

I can understand preferring a trackpad, but a decent trackpoint/nipple/clit (I actually haven't seen any usable ones except on Thinkpads, TBH) won

I feel just the contrary, all my Toshiba laptops have (had) a trackpoint clit and the next laptop wil again be chosen because it'll have one.
The control is so much better than with these silly space-hogging and impossible to control trackpads.
Because of the improved form factor I'd love to see a netbook without a trackpad.

Yes, the architecture changed: No more FSB, which also means no more alternative chipsets. The only chipset available for the new Atoms is Intel's one-chip NM-10. Other changes are not really architectural changes but would not have been possible without the abandonment of the FSB architecture: The analog video output is limited to 1440x1050 and the LVDS port for the LCD only drives up to 1366x768. Intel would not have dared crippling the chip so seriously if manufacturers could circumvent it by using a di

This would be a whole lot more interesting if Intel didn't have a pretty solid track record of producing some of the worst GPUs on the market. Perhaps the performance and power gains are more than I'm expecting, but from my perspective this seems like a pretty transparent move to cut Nvidia out of the netbook chipset market, and consequently cut down on consumer options on how they want to configure these types of machines as well.

If you'd ask me: it's still a slow piece of crap that has no particular place in the market if it weren't for (consumer) Microsoft Windows being x86-only, and now it's even worse than the original Atom since you get a crappy Intel GPU for free.

In the low-power segment: you are still better of with an ARM chip if you don't need Windows (it consumes less power), another x86 SoC if you absolutely need Windows but don't need anything else (which also consume less power) or a Via Nano if you are a consumer who likes Windows a lot but only do a little browsing and email (they are faster and comparable in terms of power consumption).

In the HTPC/Media center segment: the Atom + Nvidia ION platform was great, low-power/low-performance CPU with a GPU that does all the video decoding and OpenGL. Now you get an Intel GPU that is *still* not able to do full video-pipeline accelerated GPU decoding. Better get yourself an old Atom, or hopefully in the future a Via Nano + decent GPU.

In the Netbook segment: with the performance of the original Atom being nothing but abysmal unless you only use Notepad, you really want a Celeron ULV anyway. It's a much better design, in a whole different performance class than the Atom, and you don't get any of the stupid restrictions Intel puts on using the Atom.

In the embedded segment: you don't need x86 compatibility at all, so ARM would be your 1st choice.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see the point of a crippled and slow x86 CPU with a design based on 10-year old technology, which is forcibly coupled to an IGP that isn't able doing much more than rendering your desktop...

I agree 100%. Atom processors are a combination of stuff that I don't want. Too slow to do anything. So who cares about battery life.

A fast processor is useless if you haven't got power to run it... The really nice thing about my EEE is I can take it places - it's light enough to comfortably carry it around, and it's got enough power that I can get several hours of use out of it... Like 4-5 hours of actual usage, compared to the three or so I could get with my Powerbook - doesn't sound like much but in practice it's a big difference.

It is too slow to do a fair number of things - for instance, Youtube and Hulu (i.e. Flash video) playbac

Yeah but there is a middle ground between Atom and the fastest Core2 you can put into a 'laptop'. You can get low power fast processors and get 4-5 hours of battery easily.

Look at the X200S by lenovo.

With a 6-cell battery (which, I'm guessing, is what you need for actual 5 hours use as opposed to spec'd), it weighs about 50% more than my 901... Of course, that may be a result of other components' weight, such as the hard drive, rather than just the battery... (judging by the weight difference between the 6-cell and 9-cell versions of the X200, that's probably the case...)

I guess I'd probably be inclined to agree that the Atom may not be the best point on the power consumption/processing capabilities c

I have read that there's also the possibility of adding a Broadcom decoder chip to offload the work of video decoding, which might allow 1080p video while keeping power consumption low. That's what I'd like to see in my next netbook.

I think Intel is crippling it to keep from killing higher margin notebook sales.From AnandTech"The integrated GMA 3150 graphics hasn’t been used by Intel before, it’s a 45nm shrink of the GMA 3100. It’s technically a DX9 GPU running at 400MHz, however as you’ll soon see - you can’t really play any games on this platform. The GPU only offers hardware acceleration for MPEG-2 video, H.264 and VC-1 aren’t accelerated."

Sometimes I get the impression you're just trying to find fault, if it's so "abysmal unless you only use Notepad", why do you care about the "stupid restrictions"? The Atom is about two things really, price and battery life. The Atom it's a much smaller, much less handpicked chip than any of Intel's very highly priced ULV editions. And sure you can get better workhorses for your money, but not lower power than the N450 having a 5.5W TDP for CPU+memory controller+GPU with a sub-watt additional chipset.

Even the original Atoms used less power than the most power-efficient single-core AMD platform.

Platform TDP for the Yukon platform (RS690E northbridge, SB600 southbridge) ranges from 19 watts with a 1 GHz Sempron, to 26 for a 1.6 GHz Athlon. (29 for a dual-core 1.6 GHz Turion.) The most efficient Athlon-based Yukon is 1.2 GHz, and platform power consumption is 24 watts.

Platform TDP for the typical N270+945GSE+ICH7M is 11.8 watts, N450+NM10 is 7 watts. Granted, the Yukon stuff doesn't really compete with the Atom, it competes with Intel CULV.

Oh, and I'll toss the VIA Nano in, it fits somewhere between the Atom and the CULV and Yukon platforms in performance.

The fastest current Nanos for netbooks are the U2225 and U2250, both at 1.3 GHz (the U2250 is at "1.3+ GHz") and 8 W TDP. (IIRC, though, the Nano is significantly faster than Atom.) The matching VX800U chipset has a 3.5 W TDP, so 11.5 W total platform TDP - less than the old Atom platform.

The upcoming U3200 is at 1.4 GHz (and even faster than the clockspeed implies, apparently,) possibly 5 W TDP, and 2.3 W for the VX855, so 7.3 W platform TDP.

Windows CE netbooks exist [wikipedia.org]. Windows Mobile, a distribution of CE for PDAs and smartphones, runs just fine on ARM. So I don't see what's stopping a company from putting a Windows-brand operating system on an ARM netbook.

At the moment, available arm processors are still behind the atom in performance by a fairly large margin, and ahead in power consumption by a similar margin. The current top of the line arm chip is the cortex-a8 used in the beagle board and gumstix systems-on-a-chip. When dual core and quad core arm cortex-a9 processors become available, that might change.

We are currently in the "roll your own" stage of development for arm machines.

Buy a beagle board or a gumstix, attach it to an lcd, mini keyboard and bat

No, I just am not taking wikipedia as truth. It isn't a valid source for research and nowhere does it state what ARM architecture it uses. Qualcoms snapdragon page does not state that snapdragon is an ARM cpu. I have found a grand total of one blog article, in reference to an Asus snapdragon eePC that was only shown for one day that even mentions ARM in association with snapdragon, and that article is also filled with innuendo that microsoft forced Asus to withdraw the netbook.

Wikipedia is worth more trust than you give it. I've never actually found Wikipedia to be wrong. It's always seams to be the person stating Wikipedia is wrong, that is wrong. Stats seam to bear that out comparing it with other more established encyclopedias. When I have found it to be lacking, I've added to it, but not actually found it wrong, yet.

Atom is ahead in performance, no denying that, but it's not clean cut as it's not by much and it is hard to compare as they eat instructions very differently. But just to be clear, the ARM is much further ahead when it comes to low power consumption and cost. If you free of Windows you are free of x86, then you are free to balance power consumption, cost and performance, which means ARM or MIPS win every time. In fact you could cheat, and fit multiple ARM cores and come out on top with performance whilst st

Buy a beagle board or a gumstix, attach it to an lcd, mini keyboard and battery, now install one of the handful of linux operating systems available for it and you have an arm netbook.

Right... that'll go over big with the general public, so I'm sure to see that kit available at newegg and bestbuy any day now.

Wait, that's your complaint? Not that building and setting up your own machine would be a pain in the ass, but just that the kit wouldn't be popular with the general population, and wouldn't be available on Newegg?

Point is, there was headline after headline proclaiming that 2009 was going to be the year of the ARM netbook, and by 2012 that 20 or 30% of the entire netbook market would be ARM based. That simply isn't going to happen if the answer is "buy your own components, get yourself a CNC milling machine and design a case for them, and fashion your own netbook".

People are always quick to blame MS and Intel, but the problem is more that their competitors keep dropping the ball.

Well, really, building your own ARM netbook isn't the answer to ARM netbooks being "the next big thing". It does sound like a fun project, actually (I think I'd start with an old EEE case or something) but, yeah, I really don't think a build-your-own-ARM-netbook would make for a successful popul

Binary compatibility is a non-issue if your free of Windows. I'm happy with my SheavaPlug. Be happier still when I can have a decent ARM netbook. I don't need Windows, Wine or not. The idea of a virtual machine Wine client with native Wine server interests me, but only technically.

I mean, in theory, binary compatibility isn't an issue for me. In practice, when I've tried it, there was always some nice bit of software that was partially coded in IA-32 assembly, or that had platform-specific optimizations - or, like I said before, non-libre software like drivers or whatever for a piece of hardware in my system... Or maybe someone has a nice, closed-source app for Linux and they only build for Intel. Apart from things like critical drivers (video, audio, network)

You could say the same thing about the home computer before 1980, the acorn atom and sinclair zx80 were only available in kit form. And before that, much more self fabrication was required.

Right now, you can:

A: build it yourself with hobby parts.B: wait till someone makes a big enough investment to get mass production off the ground.C: try to scrounge up enough capital to get it going yourself. These guys are doing just that http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/index.htm [alwaysinnovating.com]

You want as much screen real estate as you can get. These tiny "LCD watch" resolution screens suck for any real-world work. Sure a netbook can be handy for travel, but for serious tasks like PCB design, you want pixels, and more than a thimble-full. I do PCB design with protel (altium or whatever protel turned into), and I do it at 1920x1200 and I would love twice that. You don't want to stare at the world through a toilet paper tube.